Geological Society. 



491 



author, he regarded all the deposits abounding in recent shells in 

 Scotland and Ireland as belonging to one group ; but in his second 

 memoir he contends that there are two distinct formations on the 

 Clyde, in the older of which there are from ten to fifteen per cent, of 

 extinct or unknown species of shells, which he refers to the Newer 

 Pliocene system of Lyell ; whereas all the species found in the 

 newer, which he calls Post-tertiary, exist also in the present seas. 

 During this Post-tertiary period, which is considered to have been 

 anterior to the human epoch, an elevation of at least forty feet 

 took place on the shores of the Clyde. Mr. Smith affirms that the 

 Till, or unstratified accumulation of clay and boulders, belongs not 

 to the Post-tertiary, but to the older Pliocene division. 



PALAEONTOLOGY. 



In the department of Palaeontology Prof. Owen has, during the 

 past year, contributed many papers, with his usual zeal and ability, 

 to the elucidation of this most essential and perhaps most generally 

 interesting branch of our subject. At the head of these we must 

 place his determination of a tooth and part of a jaw of a fossil mon- 

 key, of the genus macacus, with part of the jaw of an opossum, and 

 the tooth of a bat, in Eocene strata of the English tertiary forma- 

 tion. These remains were found at Kingston, near Woodbridge in 

 Suffolk, by Mr. Colchester, in strata which Mr. Lyell has referred 

 to the London clay ; thus proving the existence of quadrumanous, 

 marsupial, and cheiropterous animals in this country during the 

 Eocene period. We have now evidence of fossil Quadrumana in 

 the tertiary formations, not only of India and Brazil, but also of 

 France and England ; respecting which Mr. Owen has observed, 

 that they appear under four of the existing modifications of the 

 quaclrumanous type : viz. the tailless ape (Hylobates), found fossil in 

 the South of France ; the gentle vegetable-feeding Semnopithecus, 

 found fossil in India ; the more petulant and omnivorous Macacus, 

 found in Norfolk; and the platyrrhine Callithrix, found in Brazil. 

 This genus is peculiar to America, and its extinct species is of 

 more than double the stature of any that exists at the present day. 

 This geographical distribution of Quadrumana adds further weight 

 to the arguments derived from the tropical aspect of vegetable re- 

 mains that abound in the London clay at Sheppy, showing that 

 great heat prevailed in the European part of the world, as well as 

 in India and South America, during the Eocene period. 



The probability of high temperature is further corroborated by 

 Mr. Owen's recent recognition of four petrified portions of a large 

 serpent (Patceopkis Toliapicus), eleven feet long, and in several 

 points resembling a boa, or python ; and also of a bird allied to 

 the vultures (Lithornis vulturinus), all from the London clay of 

 the Isle of Sheppy ; wherein the occurrence of fossil Crocodilians 

 and Testudinata, and of fossil fruits, having a tropical aspect, allied 

 to cocoa-nuts and many other fruits of palms, has been long known. 

 Can we account for these curious facts without supposing that at 

 the Eocene period of the tertiary epoch, the very clay on which 

 London now stands was in the condition of a nascent spice-island, 



